If all you’ve donated to a pregnancy isn’t a massive dose of proteins, calcium, liquid, waste-disposal, weight-haulage and endangerment, if all you’ve contributed is basically a drop of snot with a little DNA in it, you have to work at having a relationship with the child and its mother.  Pfirsich hasn’t been around during the pregnancy to take advantage of everything from expectation to odors to lock him into any kind of connection with his own kid.  This is out of the blue, and throws his whole idea of himself completely off-balance.

A gay reader wrote of this story:  “See!  Gay people can learn a skill!” He said it, not me.

Nobody else is surprised Pfirsich’s parts work, but he might have been wondering himself.  After all, if you’re “different,” you might wonder if it’s from a physical cause. All of a sudden, he knows he’s fertile — and according to his family, he should have been providing heirs, grandkids and nephews.  If there was ever an excuse in his mind, it’s gone. But I never asked him, and he’s long gone (deceased, 1990).  The only stories I can tell about him now are the ones he left me.

I didn’t sit down with my dad and learn all his stories — and Rosen is based somewhat on him.  RECORD YOUR OLDER RELATIVES WHILE YOU STILL CAN!